For-Profit Colleges Outpace Public 2-Year Institutions, Report Says

Don’t be fooled. I have a part-time position at a for-profit college that leaves much to be desired. Drop-out rate is so high that teachers are required to call absentees at the end of each class. There are many reasons for the drop-outs. The most disturbing is the inadequate services. For example, 1.We are required to make copies of the daily attendance rosters but the copy machine is often broken, principally because it is a machine that cannot handle the large volume of copying we do. 2. Even full-time teachers do not have private offices so they cannot converse with students without an audience. 3. The printer often runs out of toner so last week when five of my students e-mailed me their essays, I could not print them. 4. Many of the computers in the teachers’ rooms are operating on the Microsoft 1998-2001 but the computers in classrooms and in the library have the 2007 version, making it necessary to conduct extra steps to open documents sent to us. 5. The bookstore does not order enough books so they run out of copies. Although this is also a problem at not-for-profit colleges, this bookstore ran out during the first week of classes for Spring Term. And most disconcerting, the book store was closed one day during the first week of classes. 6. The internet is often down, last week for two days. 7. Last term, I had a student who showed up for the first time three weeks after the term began. I was told that I not only had to keep her in my class but I was expected to guide her through the material she had missed. 8. Some students are taking courses AND their pre-requisites at the same time. I could go on and on but I believe you get the point. While this is only one example, it signals the Parthenon Group that it must exercise more due diligence before releasing such accolades to for-profit institutions.

It seems to me that the rise of the for-profit colleges is partially a function of the Pell Grant and college-loan system which had the effect of making money available to students outside the public college system. I think the rise of the for-profit colleges have benefited many students whose needs did not fit the old system, since the availability of degree programs to the public has grown tremendously. Students who would not have been deemed acceptable for entry into degree programs in the old system can now get into a for-profit college and earn the degree they want or need, if they can actually do the work. Working and family people have benefited because cities that once had a very limited offering of higher education programs now have more, and with the growth of distance education, degree program options are not as limited by geography as they used to be. I have worked for nonprofit, for-profit, and public colleges also, and they all have budgets that limit what they can do. Within each of those categories there is a wide variety of institutions, and some schools in each category are better funded, better led, or have better personnel practices than others, so it is difficult to paint them all with the same brush. Bernard SchusterArrive2.net